20 brews in 2024 done. Lots more to come.

I’ve been meaning to post a little ramble for a while and had the halfway point of the year firmly in my sights but with every blink I feel like we’ve fast forwarded another few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago we did our twentieth brew of the year and I figured that’s quite a milestone for our tiny little brewery and the perfect chance to gather my thoughts on the year so far and put them down on paper.

Our first few months of operating the brewery really were a whirlwind. Everything from trying to get to grips with the kit, trying to brew our beer as consistently as we could and organising marketing activity and getting out and about as much as time and budgets allowed was pretty exhausting.

The result was a successful first four months or so but it wasn’t without its challenges and whilst we sold way more beer than I expected I was a bit downbeat about the end product, it just wasn’t hitting the right notes for me.

So when we took a deep breath back in January and forged our plan for the year ahead we decided simply to work on the beer and get it as good as we can.

So what did we do? Well January and February were really about spending some money and getting ourselves sorted. We invested all the money we made over Christmas on things we figured would improve things for us going forward.

First we spent money on some water testing equipment so we could really start to focus on hitting the right profiles to further improve the quality and consistency of the beer. Both of which wobbled a bit to begin with.

Next up we threw some money at modifying the homebrew kit to allow us to ferment and store small batches of beer under pressure quickly and easily. It wouldn’t make us any money but it meant we could get a wider variety of beer out to you all and gave us the chance to create and can smaller test batches of beer to see if they were any good. If they caught on with our lovely customers we could create bigger batches as the brew schedule would allow.

Fast forward to March and we were able to launch our first tester batches under the ‘Limited Release’ banner of beers. We initially launched with three beers but have gone on to release nine different beers under this banner in total so far this year. To date two of these beers have gone on to be beers in their own right with ‘Island in the Sun’ and ‘Good Vibrations’ flying out of the beer store over the summer.  March also saw us begin our market and event activities, pitching up in Warwick. We also got our beers on sale at a couple of events too.

April saw us brewing absolutely LOADS as our first batches of the year quickly sold and our activity began to ramp up. I headed off to our first tasting event and we got back out to Warwick Market once more.

The first couple of months absolutely flew by but it felt like the year really kick started for us in May with an absolutely fantastic couple of days at the Evesham Medieval Market. Here we were able to allow people to taste beers and really walk people through them. It was by far our busiest couple of trading days up to that point and a massive boost to our confidence, with most people grabbing themselves a few cans once they had a little taste. They tasted, they liked, they bought! Honestly what more could we wish for?

Fathers Day brought a healthy boost for June with our 6 pack gift boxes proving mega popular. We enjoyed another busy day at Warwick Market too, which became our best day in Warwick by a country mile!

As we closed July we had another tremendous day here in Meon Vale as part of the Meon Vale Fun Fest. Seeing people buy, drink and buy our beers right on our doorstep was a wholesome experience and considering it was a short five hour day and the first couple of hours were absolutely pouring down we were absolutely delighted to be a fraction away from it being a record day for us one again.

This weekend we headed back to Evesham for the Battle of Evesham Festival. We couldn’t wait to see what people think of what we’ve got to offer. Again it was a pretty humbling experience, seeing faces we saw back in May back at the stall to stock up on more of our beer was amazing. Seeing people tasting our beers for the first time and hearing that ‘ohhhh’ after the first sip is so so satisfying. On Saturday night we also popped along to help our friends Meet on the Ledge, providing the bar for their latest gig and sharing our beers with even more new people. Our busiest weekend to date and a record couple of days. We’ve never sold as much beer as we did on Saturday. We’ll struggle to beat the weekend for the rest of the year!

As we move through the rest of August and into September we’ve got plans for two new limited release beers. We’re also plotting to give our popular ‘Limited Release – Irish Stout’ it’s own name, label and much bigger batch after that sold out almost immediately earlier this year too. All three should, all being well, be available for our next scheduled outing at the Broadway Food Festival in September (unless we can be tempted out again before then!!).

Talking of bigger batches it feels like we’ve hit a great spot with Meon Pale and Empire State this summer, both slightly fine tuned and both tasting all the better for it. We continue to brew those a pace with Meon Pale on course to hit four figures when it comes to cans shifted come the end of the year. That boggles my mind when I think of the size of our tiny little brewery project.

The year to date in terms of stats kind of boggles my mind a bit to be honest but I might just wait to share those until we hit the magic one year anniversary of our daft little project (which coincidently will be during Broadway Food Festival!).

In terms of what the rest of the year hold it’s a case of brew as much as we can whilst absolutely not compromising on quality. We’ll get out and about as much as we can and share the good word of Borderlines Brewing as much as we can too! The brewery has been producing almost to capacity in 2024 and I can’t really see that changing between now and the end of the year. We’ve got plans for a couple more new beers before the year is out. We’ll be tweaking those Limited Release recipes and promote as many as we can up to the big kit. Naturally we’ll keep going with our core range too to keep stocks up as we prepare for what is shaping up to be a busy Autumn and Christmas season.

As I sit here on the this barmy August evening my mind is firmly on Christmas gift ideas too. What kick ass gifts can we offer this year? Watch this space.

Oli